Altador Cup X

[Carolyn]

May 8, 2015 21:46:00 GMT -5 Twillie said:

Who knows, maybe if DC got a bad enough rap, we could get another war plot kick started ;3

I like this thought process. DC vs the world? Or maybe the Haunted Citadel (DC/HW) versus the world? The Haunties are long term friends of mine. I'm actually Facebook friends with around 20 of them, lol. xP

Well, it's less profound than earlier years, but from what I've seen on the boards, people think DC players are rude, unwelcoming, poor sports, that sort of thing. :/

Secretly, part of me hopes some sort of cataclysm happens mid cup that leads into some sort of awesome war plot thing. Or some sort of escape from the norm.

[Twillie]

Ugh, that's rather unfair and illogical of them to assume RL people are like characters in a game

But if it's going to be called Haunted Citadel vs. the world, can the Haunted Woods team try to ally with DC, only to face off against DC's "exes:" Kass, those three Fate guys, evil Darigan, greedy Skarl, and the orb?

[Carolyn]

^ I am completely okay with this.

Also, yeah. Seriously, though. It's like, dudes, Neopets is a game. If you're not here to have fun, why are you playing? o.O Ah well, it is what it is. I still enjoy the characters, the comradery, and the games... in reason. Plus the AC has turned into my excuse to catch up on every episode of a series. How else would I have had time to listen to all of Nightvale?

[Ziporen]

I don't think DC'ers as a whole are bad. I've definitely seen a few that weren't very nice, but it's also a huge team so that's bound to happen at some point, and it has with others.

But I do think we have a slight rivalry with you guys. At the very least I sorta' do. :b

[Ginz ❤]

Hah. I just went to the prize shop to find out I earned a whopping 12 points last year. XD; Well, I've spent them now!

The AC is something I've been iffy about for a couple of years because I was just very unhappy with the awful bracket system. XD;; That's why last year I barely put any effort into playing at all. I was really hoping TNT would salvage the AC this year by overhauling the system again, maybe going back to Round Robin, or something completely different. But now that JS is in charge, I'm not really holding my breath for any changes, except for the absence of the Staff Tournament (which used to be my favorite thing in the last few years ;_; )

Honestly, I'm surprised we're having an Altador Cup at all. I guess we'll see how it goes.

[RielCZ]

The Altador Cup carries heavy nostalgia for me so I'm glad to see it back. (Though it's been just downhill after ACV and with the transition to the bracket system IMO.)

With everything happening, yeah, not sure why they brought it back. I agree with the ACX being a milestone they kind of had to hit... heh... But I also wonder if maybe the real reason IS the possibility of the staff tourney. If JSN did have one, it would be the perfect way to finally introduce the new team, show us they have a personable, fun side. Show us they care about events and the like. As much as it might make some players angry.

No idea how much I'll play this year.

...But I still have 3757 points leftover from last year I need to spend ASAP. 8D

[Duke Pikachu]

Section 1: My Immediate Thoughts:
... WHAT?! JS is bringing back the Altador Cup?! I don't know what to say, though like everyone else here if I was able to put words together not a lot of it would be optimistic.

Okay, my thoughts in a list:

1. Even for TNT the Altador Cup was a huge event to handle and sometimes even then things fell through the crack. How is JS going to handle it with a smaller staff combined with any of the new JS staff who are still figuring out the site?

2. Over the past few years the Altador Cup had sadly gone downhill. Even TNT themselves have said they were thinking about skipping this year (which possibly means they didn't create any new art assets). There are a TON of problems from cheaters, a broken tournament system, New Yooyuball, 1-point Shootout Showdown. You can read all my thoughts on it on my Fire Lupe's petpage. Essentially the whole thing needs to be rebuilt from the grounds up. Problem is, the code is probably still very well there so is JS just going to use the same code as last year?

3. JS has been slow on the new content, even if they use the old stuff from previous Altador Cup for this to feel like the Altador Cup I see some major art needing to be done. First is they usually add one or two new players, actually, changing up a team line-up also would involve some work (and even then TNT had trouble with that in one or two places). Second they would have to make an entire Prize Shop worth of new items!

Tl;dr, the Altador Cup is a HUGE undertaking and I think at this time a BAD IDEA for JS to do. I can understand JS maybe wanting to do an event to not only stir up some site traffic but also test themselves... but I would think maybe a Games Master's Challenge or Daily Dare would have been FAR better choice.

Section 2: Responses To Comments:
Okay, so let me actually go through everyone's posts. I did skim through them but let me see if you may have brought something up I didn't think of or maybe want to elaborate more on (also I may give out some likes):

Ian Wolf-Park:
Staff Tournament: Hmm, I wonder if maybe they WILL do a Staff Tournament. You know, like maybe try to introduce us to  the new JS team (as well as maybe show us some of the old TNT that is still with them)? However the sentiment would feel bitter since we would know the reason why there would be so many new staff and why old favorites aren't there. If this was one of their intentions, GMC (and I think DD) have had Staff Tournaments and probably wouldn't take up the staff's time as much as playing Yooyuball would.
If they do or don't bring back the Staff Tournament, I'd suggest everyone to also spend you Staff Tournament points also.

doctortomoe:
My Participation: Yeah, I try to play as much as I can but over the years I've found it difficult to keep playing on and on. Last year's AC was by far the worst one I've done. I played half the YYB games I usually do & I maxed out SOSD by scoring 1 point (I also played much more MSN by sending in low scores). And this was before I started looking for a job! Now that I am job hunting, I don't know how much time I'll have to play.
I'll still play for a bit, try to get All-Star at the very least, but if they keep the old system I may just try to get to All-Star and essentially stop (I'd still play for a bit, but I'm not going to dedicate myself. I just don't have the time anymore).
Sorry Meridell, I've failed you...

Shinko:
NTWF Tournament: Hmm, I guess I'll be down for a NTWF Tournament. I think my AC Trophies speak for themselves how good of a player I am. *polishes trophies*

Twillie:
Other Competition: Yeah, that's another thing. Site competitions I would imagine be easier to do than the AC and those are still MIA. Now right now they probably don't have a dedicated person or team to sit down and read through entries for the Poetry Contest, Art Gallery, and Neopian Times... so maybe instead of doing the AC they should be focusing on doing that! Players still like the competitions, if JS wants us to start supporting them they should bring back something we've been desperately asking for them to bring back and not an event which if they probably did a quick survey would reveal no one is looking forward too! *sigh*
Another Plot: ... yeah, before I start clamoring for a Plot I just want to see how JN handles an event, which I guess I'm about to see. I would have lived a smaller event for them to test themselves in and build up, but I guess they probably want to see if they sink or swim. I'm just afraid if they sink that'll mean they'll never want to do any other event or Plots again, especially when players are constantly spitting out negativity...

Carolyn:
WAR: ~huh YEAH. What is it good for? Absolutely NOTHING! oh hoh, OH!~
... Sorry, well I would like them see at least FINISH the BD before moving onto any battling event. And like with Plots I'm a bit cautious on them doing anything big such as a War Plot. Maybe a battling event first? I always thought they should maybe bring back the Faerie League (obviously update it). Like you can pick an Element to support, there would be tiers of Faerie soldiers, maybe even bring in some of the popular Faeries to battle. I'd think it would be fun (I've created a rough idea of how it could go).
But with that all said, once again, this would require a LOT of new art assets. Not only would you need to draw each opponent, remember each opponent has 6 poses (idle, physical attack, ranged attack, defending, hit, & defeated).
Maybe I should list my plot/war ideas somewhere, a place where we can all share out ideas and discuss them. Who knows, maybe if we get out ideas out there it may catch the eye of JS (HAHAH... sorry) and give them some ideas...

Section 3: Prize Suggestions:
For those considering what prizes to buy, I would suggest making a list of possible combinations you can do and then pricing stuff on the Trading Post/Shop Wizard. But with that said, do remember some items will probably sell better than others. Wearables and Books usually will sell faster than Toys and Food.
While I don't claim to be a market expert, if you're having trouble coming with a list I could maybe help out. Though just warning you if you follow my suggestions I can't garuntee you'll be getting what you're looking for, I haven't tried selling last year's AC prizes yet so I don't know how easy of a sell they are.

AND for those curious, here is what I got:

Normal AC Points: 49,641
Prizes:
Altador Cup Display Cabinet Background (19k)
Yooyu Eyes (12.5k)
Camping at the Altador Cup (8k)
Altador Cup IX Commemorative Stamp (4.5k) X2
Geometric Fence Foreground (500)
Altador Cup Wig And Beanie (300)
Infectious Smile of the Shootout Showdown Goalie (175)
Official Yooyuball Tote (100)
Team Meridell Altador Cup Shield (50)
Yooyu Gumballs (10)
Yooyuball Lapel Pin (1) X6



(I would also like to note last year was the first year I didn't buy the Yooyu prize. I just couldn't bring myself too with the BG selling for me and my experience trying to sell AC8's Yooyu being tedious.)

Staff Point: 20,634
Prizes:
Tired Eyes (9k)
How To Archive Mail (4.5k)
Impressive Plushie Collection (3k) X2
Dry Erase Marker Construction Set (250) X2
Adhesive Tape Tostada (25) X5
Up For Grabs Lunch Leftovers (1) X9


(Once again, I didn't grab the top prize. Also I look at all these and just see the ton of humor in them and TNT must have had making them... if JS does do a Staff Tourney, if they want to garner our support they're going to have to at least try to capture the same feeling...)

Section 4: If There A Chance:
So, with ALL my complaining, do I think JS have a chance of achieving? Well, of course they have a chance, but how they'll do it is the question. It'll of course be very difficult and I can tell you they're not going to do it if they just reuse AC9 with a new coat of paint.
If JS REALLY wants this to work, they're going to need to rebuild the AC from the ground up. But of course another question is if its too late? Had TNT/JS been working on things in the background and fixing the problems everyone has pointed out?
My hopes aren't high, all we can do is watch this launch to see if it rises to the occasion or if it peter out and falls. Hoping for the former, expecting the latter.

One last thing... GO TEAM MERIDELL!

[Herdy]

The reason why the AC hasn't been fixed in 5 years is that TNT have not had the resources to devote to it. I can't imagine that situation has improved by significantly reducing the number of staff working on development.
Realistically, we'll have a copy and paste AC from last year, minus the staff tournament. Even getting a new Vandagyre player looks decidedly unlikely.

And that's a recipe for disaster. By the tail end of last year cheaters had successfully tested every single non-massive team to see if they could influence scores (the cause of teams suddenly getting high scores for a day). As a consequence of how the AC is currently scored, however, small teams scoring highly directly reduces the score of big teams - so they still suffer. Cheaters now have the power and knowledge to completely dictate every single result, and a drop in players on the site means that legit players have little to counter it (I suspect legit ASGs will also have lower turnout this year).

The AC is perhaps the easiest annual event to bring back, since so much of it is just copy and paste, but it was the one event that /needed/ work more than any other. There's simply no way TNT can have implemented what the AC community asked for. It's debatable even if they will be able to manage /last/ year's system, as that required someone to actively pay attention to the event every week - and they aren't managing to be that reliable with anything else at the moment.

[Blu]

I'm gonna try and be optimistic for this years AC. I haven't been on Neo really at all other than to collect bank interest, stocks, and zap Jadriar so having some motivation to sign on might be nice for once.

As far as the cheaters go, I just ignore it. AC is suppose to be a team game but cheaters gonna cheat. I am just setting my own goals once more for All-Star and the competition is going to be against myself and real life. If my team wins it wins. If it doesn't, whatever.

[Huntress]

I all but stopped playing the Cup after the first few years (it's seriously been ten?) because it got more and more tedious and convoluted and all these other games kept being added and basically they changed it now it sucks and get offa my lawn. But the way I remember it is... it's a flash game. You play the game, you send your score, the scores of players get pooled to determine who wins the tournament. It started out pretty straightforward. If they went back to those particular roots, it shouldn't take too much effort to keep it running and it wouldn't have too much room to mess up badly; basically you'd have a limited release flashgame to play.

[Yoyti]

I'm going to support Altador again. Because really, why not? Probably not going to do a whole lot, but maybe if the heavy hitters all quit, we might stand a chance...

[Coaster]

I already spent all my prize points shortly after last year's ended, and now I'm kinda wondering what I have that I can do mindlessly for a month that leaves my hands free for SoSd spam. Considering last year I did hours and hours of RuneScape (which I don't currently have any plans to sub to again) and binged the entire series of MLP:FiM and several animé series in that time span in order to barely break All-Star. <_<

Regardless, I think I'll stick to my tradition of joining Krawk Island one year and a different team the next. Which means this year is another Krawk Island go. #pirates #ki #loyalty? #wishywashy #hashtags

[Allison]

I'll probably do what I did last year. I've discovered that I'm actually.... semi decent at Yooyuball, meaning I can win fairly consistently. So I'll try to play enough to get one beyond the "participant" level, and that's about it. I'm not very optimistic, like the rest of you, but since the AC isn't a huge deal for me in the first place, I guess I'm okay with it being like last year? I'll go with Team Roo, again, Roo Islander for Rue (from the Hunger Games) became a little slogan of mine a few years ago, so I've got to stick with Roo Island.

[Twillie]

I'm not a gamer, never have been, and I've never gotten past Participant. I doubt I will this year, but who knows, maybe my annual decree of "This time for sure!" will actually come true.

Terror Mountain, bro.

[Carolyn]

Twillie- Well, if you're an avvy person, less than an hour of playing 1 goal Shooutout will get you to level one? x)